With thanks to Si Bromley for posting about this on our forum, it would appear that there’s a new boxset on the way! It’s available for pre-order on Amazon and Play, and is scheduled for release on 16th December (which, whilst technically in time for the Christmas market, is cutting it a bit bloody fine). Details are sketchy, but the British Comedy Guide notes that it will contain “every episode to date and out of this world extras”.

All sources seem to indicate that this set will comprise of a whopping 24 discs, so it would appear that it’s a collection of all the extras-laden versions of the DVDs, which is a first for the UK, as far as I can recall. But the individual releases of I to X are made up of a total of 22 discs, which leaves two spare. Will they add Beat The Geek? Just the Smegs? The main disc of The Bodysnatcher Collection? We just don’t know. I guess the former two are the most likely, as that’d be a case of just sticking the existing releases into a big box, rather than having to manufacture a special Bodysnatcher-lite edition. If so, that’s a bit of a shame, as the release would omit the big long documentaries for Series I and II, and of course Bodysnatcher itself.

It’s not going to be cheap – somewhere between £60 and £100 depending on where you buy it – which is understandable given the number of discs involved, but that makes it hard for those of us who have already got all this stuff to justify the purchase. It strikes us as being a wee bit money-grabby, but hey – if BBC Worldwide/2entertain can make any extra money off the back of Red Dwarf, then I guess that makes it even more attractive for UKTV to keep making more new stuff. We will report more on this as and when more details emerge.

I feel a little guilty posting this and a bit like a spoiled fan boy considering all the great DVD extras they’ve already given us, but it would be fantastic if this boxset would contain new extras like commentaries by Doug on X, additional ones on some more I-VIII episodes, and a shitload of rushes footage.

I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely that we’ll be getting any new material on this. Considering it’s out in just over a month’s time and this is the first we’re hearing of it, it’s surely got to be just a case of grabbing existing releases and putting them in a big box – otherwise it would have been trailed on TOS for months.

Yeah, I noticed that – got me thinking, too. The artwork is from 2009 (the old Red Dwarf Network design comp). At some point, I do remember working out how many discs were needed back then for the ‘complete series’ set:

I-VIII (6 double-discs and 2 triple)
BTE (2)
Bodysnatcher (4)

That’s where the figure ’24’ comes from. Not counting, of course…

Just The Smegs (1)
Beat The Geek (1)
RDX (2)

…which either didn’t exist yet, or weren’t ‘series’ releases. If all were included in this set, that would probably bump it up to around 28 discs, in total.

It’s a plausible theory (stranger things have happened), but even so, I’d still be very surprised if all this is due solely (if at all) to the artwork. It’s been up for years and is clearly marked as a comp entry. If someone thought it was the real deal and took it upon themselves to list it directly, I can only say I’m strangely flattered! But if that’s the case, then why not use my artwork in the listing itself? Don’t think it’s there now, but I definitely saw a BTE/RDX publicity still with the logo and “25th Anniversary” text added in somewhere. Didn’t look legit.

Have you seen the current BBC re-releases in the bland generic ‘british comedy classic’ packaging? I saw Fawlty Towers, Fools & Horses and The Complete Two Ronnies at hmv the other week. Let’s hope it isn’t part of that.